The New Rosian Mountains rose before Kylia like jagged teeth against the azure sky, their peaks capped with snow that shimmered like scattered diamonds. It had taken several days of travel from near New Rosa City over 2,000 kilometers southwest.
Scouting from a height of 4,000 meters above sea level, her view started to drastically narrow as the ground came up beneath her. Not before too long she was only 100 meters above the surface.
"Whoosh!" Three glimmering lightning arrows suddenly flew right at her. Recognizing the threat, Kylia veered left only to be met by three more lightning arrows, two hit her top wings and another her torso. While the arrows did not penetrate, shock her or cause any injuries, they were able to knock Kylia from the sky.
"Whoa!" At nearly 300 km/h, Kylia tumbled into the mountainside. After rolling down the snowy slope for a couple seconds she came to a stop at a rocky ridge. Scrambling to get up, she pushed herself onto her hands and knees, chest heaving. Before Kylia could fully regain her balance, a blinding flash erupted from her right.
A Golden Lynel, its white mane shimmering like molten gold, charged straight at her. Without much time to think, Kylia drew her sword out as her Маньоко span furiously. A vertical 10 million degree celsius 100 meter long plasma slash flew out.
The Golden Lynel, seeming to somewhat react to Kylia's attack, immediately tried to dodge but was too slow, from 10 meters away it only had a 29 millisecond timeframe before it got hit. It actually did dodge the direct slash, but there was no way it could dodge the heat emitted by the plasma slash.
What was left was the usual 5 meter wide, 10 meter deep and nearly 100 meter long trench of molten rock with a side of a smoldering chunk of Golden Lynel appeared where Kylia had struck.
It was not surprising that the Golden Lynel was utterly defeated, it stood no chance against Kylia's plasma slash. After all, her slash is nearly as hot as the core of earth's sun, only a fool would take it, if they could dodge it that is. Kylia's combat power unknowingly reached the pinnacle of the world, now only a horde of Lynels or a god could possibly take her down.
"Wha-!" To her surprise, the chunk of charred Golden Lynel meat immediately started wiggling. Slowly, tendrils of molten fur and sinew began to stretch, contort and out came a new and albeit weary Golden Lynel.
"Hmm?" Kylia was now slightly interested in the trembling Lynel. Despite near annihilation, it was able to regenerate back into its peak state. Could this property be based on the video game's hit point system?
"I thought no one was gonna arrive, yet here you are. Not that I was feeling lonely or anything." A flamboyant voice interrupted Kylia's train of thought, seemingly from nowhere.
"Who are you! Show yourself!" Kylia surveyed her surroundings while keeping an I on the pitiful Golden Lynel, lest it made any strange movements. Better be safe than sorry.
Despite her superior vision, she could not figure out who was the source of the voice or where it came from.
"Hmm? Oh!" The voice seemingly pondered why Kylia went silent before realizing she could not find it. "Don't mind me being so positively uncivil. Allow me to introduce myself."
A ripple of white light tore open the air ten meters in front of Kylia. A slender figure stepped through, heels clicking delicately against the snow-dusted rock. He was tall, pale as polished ivory, with diamond-shaped patterns embedded in his skin like gemstones. His long tongue briefly flicked across his lips, leaving a glistening sheen. Cloaked in a pristine red mantle that fluttered without wind, he spoke with exaggerated, almost mocking grace.
"I am simply a humble Demon Lord who fought many heroes and a dutiful servant of the Demon God himself. You may call me Ghirahim. In truth, I very much prefer to be indulged with my full title: Lord Ghirahim. But I'm not fussy."
Hearing his words Kylia raised her saber, ready to send a plasma slash at a moment's notice. In game the guy may seem unimpressive but to avoid her detection while mocking her means he's no small figure. The fact a character from a different game other than BOTW already had alarmed her, especially since the great calamity hadn't even begun yet.
Seeing Kylia's actions, Ghirahim put his head in his arms in distress. "Did you really draw your sword at me, foolish girl? I've been waiting millenia for this chance to be resurrected and this is what I get! Despite causing such a scene, only a Valor child shows up! Do you have any idea how that made me feel inside?"
"Furious! Outraged! Sick with anger!" He roared, arms spread in agony before disappearing from Kylia's sight.
"This turn of events has left me with a strong appetite for bloodshed." Ghirahim's voice now appeared bodiless again to the startled Valor. Even the Golden Lynel was now shaking hard in its hoofs.
Sneaking up behind Kylia and out of sight of the Golden Lynel, Ghirahim spoke softly into Kylia's pointy ear. "Still…It hardly seems fair, being of my position, to take all my anger on you. Which I promise up front not to murder you…"
"Really, you should be proud of your strength, even tens of thousands of years ago you would have been second class among those in the mortal realm…" He continued while with two fingers he drew a black golden energy barrier, trapping the Golden Lynel.
"So I'll just beat you within an inch of your life!" Ghirahim stared at the space directly in front of Kylia, tongue flailing out of his mouth and hollering these words out loud as Kylia shot out from his reach.
Seeing Kylia breathing heavily out of fear in front of him, Ghirahim chuckled to himself before spreading his arms out once again, his red mantle dissipating into the wind and a sly grin drew on his face.
"Eat my slash!" Spotting an opportunity, Kylia surged towards Lord Ghirahim at mach speed, saber raised over her head ready to slash. Because they were so close Kylia was sure to get a direct hit as she swung down. However, the moment she thought Ghirahim was done for and he would be split in two or vaporized, she recoiled in shock.
With just his right hand Lord Ghirahim easily caught Kylia's blade with just two fingers. The plasma slash continued on its path, forming a deep gash along the mountain side, the rock face shattering and crumbling as the plasma blade bit deep into the earth.
Meanwhile, Kylia staggered as Lord Ghirahim used his fingers to then flip Kylia's saber into the air despite her supernatural strength.
Lord Ghirahim caught the sword in mid air before examining the blade closely. "Hmm, it's better than most swords but still inferior to that of the goddess sword. But so long as you telegraph your attacks like the novice you are, you'll never land a blow, so I might as well keep it."
"Now, let me show you true sword arts!" Lord Ghirahim laughed as he jumped up, only to reappear behind Kylia, slashing down with her sword.
In response Kylia tried to summon a square meter large, one million degree celsius plasma shield but Lord Ghirahim was too fast and smashed right through the barrier.
"Argh!" Kylia roared as Lord Ghirahim used her sword to cleanly cut off her entire right arm. Even the sleeve of her uniform, made with her own hair, was cut off cleanly as if it was woven with threads of cheese.
"Blayt!" Although she still had her intact dominant left arm, Kylia was now completely enraged at Lord Ghirahim. Unlike Humans, Valors take longer to heal as rare elements need to be ingested for the formation of new cells and Valor cells split slower than Human cells. And with the severity of the injury, she would need even longer to heal. Luckily, because Valors live so long, they have slow yet astounding healing abilities, even being able to grow new limbs in decades. However, Kylia's combat effectiveness will now be temporarily reduced for a couple of years.
Lord Ghirahim, with Kylia's sword in his right hand, made a gesture with his left and summoned five flying daggers. Pointing at Kylia the daggers, as if responding to his orders, shot towards Kylia at super sonic speeds.
Kylia, not wanting to take chances, backed away at Mach 1 while using her 10 meter radius, 1 million degree plasma hair to deflect the flying daggers away from her.
Lord Ghirahim, snorting, brought Kylia's saber to his side and dashed at Kylia at hypersonic speeds.
Kylia, panicked at seeing that Lord Ghirahim was even faster than her, steeled her resolve for a life and death encounter. As the distance closed between them in milliseconds her multi-pupil irises span so fast that they started to project a single black sideways K in each eye. The air around Kylia shimmered as electromagnetic fields generated vast amounts of plasma.
A three-meter-tall, three-million-degree-Celsius plasma counter-fit Susanoo erupted around her, throwing a single blue fist with thirty tonnes of force towards the incoming Demon Lord. Ghirahim, in response, had already begun swinging Kylia's sword across for the final, decisive blow.
The instant of impact between Lord Ghirahim's new sword and Kylia's Susanoo fist was the very moment Kylia realized she made a catastrophic mistake. While the plasma Susanoo possessed a temperature of three million degrees, it did not radiate heat with the same aggressive efficiency as her plasma slash. Her plasma slash was designed for destruction, its electromagnetic containment fields intentionally weakened to allow heat to bleed through readily. In stark contrast, her plasma Susanoo was primarily a defensive construct, boasting exceptionally robust containment fields. The heat generated by the plasma Susanoo was merely sufficient to singe her former sword before the rest of the weapon, unhindered, broke through the arm and penetrated the blue rib cage.
"Wham!" Thrown like a discarded rag doll, Kylia slammed into the steep, rocky mountainside. Lord Ghirahim's blow, partially mitigated by Kylia's defenses, was still enough to embed her slightly into the stone face. Though no new bones had been broken, she was now coughing up blood, recoiling from the brutal internal injuries inflicted.
"Urh…" Kylia's strength ebbed, and she collapsed completely, utterly exhausted and woozy. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't be so weary after such a confrontation, but at this point, she had sustained multiple severe injuries and lost a significant amount of blood. The brightness of her Rod had severely weakened and her energy reserves were critically low. In this state, achieving a tenth of her peak combat effectiveness would be difficult.
"Well…You put up more of a fight than I would have thought possible out of such a soft girl. But don't clap for yourself quite yet, if you can, that is." Lord Ghirahim said while he threw Kylia's sword into a ditch nearby, it was too weak for him.
Intimidated, the stump on Kylia's shoulder throbbing with an agony that threatened to consume her consciousness, she struggled to scramble to her feet.
"Well I'll be taking this!." Reaching out with quaint hands, Lord Ghirahim gripped Kylia's black sideways K-shaped horn, fingers digging in at the base. Straining his wrist, it wrenched the horn free. Blinding pain coursed through Kylia's head as cartilage and bone tore apart with a wet, sickening crunch. The horn, slick with black blood and still faintly pulsing with smoldering blood, dangled from his grasp.
Lord Ghirahim turned the severed horn over in its palm, eyes glinting with satisfaction. In the Era of the Goddess Hylia, Valor horns are a very valuable and exotic material, even rivaling amber relics. Still, to him it was next to worthless, after all, his body was a grade higher than these materials. Uninterested, he cast the horn aside as he made a movement to unseal the Golden Lynel.
"I fear I spent far too long teasing and toying with you. Goodbye Valor child. Run and play this time. Get in my way again, though, and you're dead." Lord Ghirahim stated his condolences before disappearing in a burst of black and white crystals.
The Golden Lynel, turning its attention to Kylia's now unconscious body hanging limply from the mountain face, had a hint of bloodlust, before clarity filled its eyes. Shaking its head, the Lynel picked up Kylia and spent a couple of minutes trotting towards the border of its territory. There, it tossed Kylia into a snow laden ditch and the Lynel then made its way back to the center of its territory with Kylia's saber and horn in hand.